Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Cherry Marzipan Tart

Photo updated in October 2010

The cherry season is in full swing in Estonia. Every market stall sells both sweet and sour cherries - the latter being more easily available these days. I love using sour cherries in various cakes, much more than sweet cherries which are often too bland in flavour. Here's a nice recipe with sour cherries and sweet marzipan and crunchy flaked almonds. You can substitute sweet cherries, but I'd use some more lemon zest to spike things up a bit.

For the pastry, cut flour, salt, sugar and butter into fine crumbs (it's easiest when using your food processor). Add the egg and press the pastry into a ball. Pressing with your fingers, line a 25 cm (10 inch) pie form with the pastry. Put into a fridge for 30 minutes to rest, then blind bake at 200 C for 15 minutes.Spread the grated marzipan and lemon zest onto the pastry base. Top with cherries*Whisk sour cream, sugar, egg and vanilla extract until combined, then drizzle over the cherries. Top with sliced almonds.Bake at 200 Celsius for about 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is cooked and the almond topping light golden brown.Cool before cutting into slices.

* If using frozen cherries, then defreeze them first and drain thoroughly.

Pille, thank you so much for taking the time to put this recipe up here- I actually went to the library and got an Estonian -English dictionary to translate a number of your recipes. They all look so good that I can't sit still till I'll try them! Thank you again!

I had a good feeling about this one, and it turned out absolutely great, perfect combination of sweet and sour - though I am always a sucker for anything with almonds in it. (As a child my favorite cookie was gazelle horns etc)